A vintage postcard, likely from Austria featuring a silly version of Krampus admiring three female Krampi. Yes.

According to Monte Beauchamp, a well-known art director and author of the 2010 book, Krampus: The Devil of Christmas, the postcards in this post originated in Austria sometime during the 1960s. The kooky concept paired a groovy and often goofy version of Krampus with even groovier buxom girls in skintight, barely-there clothing. This was of course yet another way to market the wildly popular Krampus craze in Germany, this time as a form of erotica.

Most of the cards simply read “Gruss vom Krampus” or “Greetings from Krampus,” and a few even feature vampy female versions of Krampus behaving badly—but not as badly as the hair-pulling, child-stomping traditional Krampus we all know and hope to never run into. The Krampus-themed cards in this post are perhaps NSFW just like anything Krampus related should be. All hail Krampus! The swinging underworld king of Christmas!

“Don’t ever be afraid to try something new. You will learn from it, use it, and, hopefully, profit from it.”

—Bill Kresse.

Bill Kresse is a hero in the world of illustration and comics with many accolades to his credit, including a gig he scored after graduating from high school for legendary New York studio Terrytoons as an inker in the animation department. Terrytoons produced a few cartoons you might have heard of like Mighty Mouse, a series of toons featuring the wisecracking magpies Heckle and Jeckle, and The Mighty Heroes (Diaper Man! Never forget!).

Following that dreamy-sounding job, Kresse joined the Associated Press as a member of their prestigious art department. If you were a reader of the New York Daily News in the late 60s and early 70s you probably looked forward to Kresse’s cheeky comic strip “Super” Duper which ran in the paper exclusively for several years every Sunday. Kresse and his layout artist friend Rolf Ahlsen collaborated on the storylines and comic panels for “Super” Duper which centered around the antics of tubby, girl-crazy apartment superintendent, Mr. Duper. Kresse and Ahlsen’s fictional Mr. Duper had the good fortune to work in a building inhabited by bodacious females dressed in hotpants and mini skirts. While I’m on the topic of scantily-clad, impossibly proportioned illustrated women, let’s dive into Kresse’s foray into what is commonly referred to as “vintage sleaze” in comics and his pin up art which was routinely showcased in various men’s interest digests put out by Humorama—a wickedly popular division of Martin Goodman’s massive pulp publishing firm.

In the 1950s Kresse earned the reputation of being a “good-girl” illustrator. His lighthearted pinup-style illustrations would appear in various Humorama digests for decades along with other well-known artists versed in sleaze funnies such as Bill Ward (not to be confused with Black Sabbath drummer, Bill Ward), and Superman creator Joe Shuster. So yeah, just like Clark Kent, Shuster had his own secret identity of sorts as an illustrator of fiery-hot, hardcore fetish. Go figure. Fans of Kresse and his contributions to vintage sleaze refer to him as “unappreciated” during his lifetime.

Peers of Kresse I’ve already mentioned in this post who drew classic/sleazy pinup art have already been immortalized in beautifully curated gallery shows as well as hardcover retrospectives. When it comes to Kresse, anything tangible beyond his individual vintage illustrations or comics, is a book he authored in 1984 Introduction to Cartooning. After Kresse passed away in 2014, I was hopeful that someone might finally get around to publishing a collection of his exuberant adult-oriented comics, though sadly that hasn’t happened yet. As a huge fan of all things sleazy, I can say without hesitation that Kresse deserves such an homage and more. Kresse’s work might look rather tame when compared to his contemporary Eric Stanton and one of the genre’s most prolific stars, Gene Bilbrew, but it’s still NSFW. Just like hotpants.

A photo taken at the opening of the very first Playboy Club in Chicago in 1960.

The first Playboy magazine hit the shelves in 1953 and in 1960, the late Hugh Hefner opened what would be the very first Playboy Club in Chicago. Other clubs would quickly emerge in more than twenty locations including Boston, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles, as well as more elaborate Playboy Club Resorts which you could visit in Jamaica and Manila. Entrance into the various clubs would run a member $25 a year for which they would receive a special key that when presented to a designated “Door Bunny” would get them inside. The clubs were designed to emulate the “Playboy lifestyle” projected by Hefner, though that’s not what initially ignited the vast existence of Playboy Clubs. The actual inspiration for the clubs began with an article in Playboy published in 1959 that detailed the goings-on at the historic Gaslight Club in Chicago’s River North area. The club was the brainchild of Burton Browne who modeled the club around the “Gay 90s” (aka the “Naughty Nineties” or the decade beginning in 1890) a debaucherous period where creativity and libidos ran wild.

Like Hefner’s future Playboy Clubs, entrance to the Gaslight required a key. Naturally, Hef was already a member of the Gaslight Club as it featured his favorite thing—half-naked women with large breasts everywhere you looked. According to Victor Lownes III, the executive of HMH Publishing Company (which would later become Playboy Enterprises in 1955) he recalled that the article received over 3,000 letters from readers of Playboy inquiring as to how they too could join this exclusive club. This set the wheels in motion for Hefner who knew how to recognize an opportunity, though at the time his vision for his Playboy-themed clubs didn’t include expansion beyond Chicago. When the doors to the fledgling club opened, it employed approximately 30 girls between the ages of 18-23 who were said to be “single, beautiful, charming, and refined.” It also somehow qualifies the old saying that people really did read Playboy articles. At least they read one in 1957. And that’s a fact.

As you may have already assumed, and much like Hefner’s storied, celebrity-studded events at the Playboy Mansion, Playboy Clubs were frequented by Hollywood’s elite, such as Frank Sinatra. The Playboy Resorts featured entertainment from acts like Sonny & Cher, Melba Moore, and Sinatra’s pal and Playboy Club regular, Sammy Davis Jr. The first Detroit club which was located right across from a church attracted prominent members of that city’s vibrant jazz scene. Even Detroit’s mayor at the time Coleman Young (who held the position for twenty years starting in 1974), was an honorary member of the Playboy Club.

The St. Louis location regularly hosted comedy acts like George Carlin, Flip Wilson, Joan Rivers and Steve Martin. One of the more creative locations was opened on Lake Geneva in Wisconson that featured a ski slope, chairlift and according to former Bunny Pam Ellis, a DJ booth known as the “Bunny Hutch” where Bunnies would spin records while a bubble machine and disco ball set the mood. Most if not all of the girls at Lake Geneva lived in the “Bunny Dorm” which Ellis says was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. If a girl didn’t live in the dorms, a car would be sent for them to their home to bring them to work where they could also eat for free. Ellis looks back on her time at Lake Geneva’s Playboy Club with fondness—especially the fact that she met her husband while she was DJ’ing in the Bunny Hutch.

Frank Sinatra hanging out at the Playboy Club in Las Vegas back in the day.

I had been working on this post for a while and had just started to get some words committed to “paper” when Hefner passed away on September 27th at the age of 91. Given that somewhat unexpected event, I held off on finishing it until today as I wasn’t crazy about having DM readers think that capitalizing on the death of someone as well-known and controversial as Hugh Hefner is something we aspire to. However, I do, like so many people, look back with fondness to a time where girls in bunny tails and ears were as glamorous as the movie stars that cavorted around the same clubs with them. Below I’ve posted a huge collection of photos taken inside and on the grounds of various Playboy Clubs including some rarely seen images from the Lake Geneva location that were kindly provided to me by Adam Levin with the help of Christina Ward of Feral House.

Bunnies on top of a locally made tractor at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club in Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of Adam Levin.

Bunnies having fun at Dunn River Falls in Ochos Rios, Jamaica in 1972.

‘Rally Round the Fag’ one of ten vintage gay pulp novels starring the popular character “Jackie Holmes” from ‘The Man from C.A.M.P.’ series. Artwork by the great Robert Bonfils,1967.

Gay pulp novels have been around since the 1930s when the sale of paperback books proliferated. Historically, lesbian pulp was much more popular than novels featuring the exploits of gay men—and that is, of course, because the lesbian pulp was widely purchased by straight dudes. The popularity of the novels continued to rise during 1940s though, as noted in the book Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe edited by pulp historian Steve Berman, the very first true “gay pulp” novel was published in 1952 by author George Viereck. Viereck, a former propaganda tool of the Nazis during WWII authored the 195 page Men into Beasts that used homosexual prison culture as a part of its storyline—something Viereck had observed first hand while he was locked up.

The 50s was not a good time for the gay community, much in part to the gay-hating U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy who in addition to his suspicions that commies, pinkos and reds had managed to weasel their way into government positions, was also convinced that it was swarming with homosexuals, probably commie, pinko homosexuals, too. Known as the “Lavender Scare,” the State Department fired back at McCarthy’s delusional accusations saying that there were no communists on the government payroll. McCarthy sent his right-wing buddies to turn up the heat on the State Department claims which would result in the acknowledgment that 91 employees had been identified as “gay” and were fired under the guise that they were a huge “security risk.” When the news hit the papers and television, the public, as well as Congress, demanded a full investigation.

During this hysteria, a committee of the U.S. Senate launched the ridiculous sounding investigation “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in the Government”.
Upon the conclusion of what is best described as a gay witch hunt, the committee was unable to identify any American citizen who might have sold out the good-old U.S. of A. This didn’t stop the committee from publishing a post-operative paper which “conclusively” established that a gay man or a lesbian possessed “weak moral character” and that the inclusion of only one homosexual can “pollute a government office.” After Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected he signed the executive order 10450 which added “sexual perversion” to a long list of personality traits that could prevent a person from holding a job with the federal government which led to thousands of people losing their livelihoods.

Once the swinging 60s rolled around the U.S. post office could no longer refuse to deliver books that featured homosexuality, which, according to research conducted by the University of Massachusetts Press led to a veritable “explosion” of gay pulp novels.

Now that I’ve shared a bit of the rich history surrounding gay pulp fiction, let’s take a look at some of the more hysterical, tongue-in-cheek covers that created such a stir back in the 50s and 60s, shall we? Yes, we shall. Some are pretty NSFW.

After yesterday’s utterly vile offerings from our Shithead-in-Grief, I was determined to pull together a post on a favorite topic of mine—shining a bright, warm light on notable and obscure transgender and drag performers. I’ve done several such posts on this very topic while on active duty here at Dangerous Minds, and so have my colleagues. It seems like every time we do, there is a positive reaction from our readers. To me, this is an affirmation that the hateful, racist rhetoric coming from our nation’s capital is not collectively who we are as human beings or else not many of our good-looking high IQ readers are Trump fans. I was fortunate to have been raised by two incredible people who embraced the LGBT community at a time when there wasn’t a lot of support for people who chose “non-traditional” relationships and gender roles. Thanks to them, I’ve simply never thought of someone who doesn’t look or swing like me as anything but another person. Unless of course, you are the type that is prone to behaving in a way that physically hurts or openly discriminates against another person. If you happen to be one of those flatulent assholes that shits bricks full of hate, then please, PLEASE feel free to leap off a goddamn cliff. Now, if you’ll once again forgive my affinity to digress from the topic at hand—let’s all take a much-needed look back at one of Paris’ most famous cabaret nightclubs, Madame Arthur’s.

An article on Madame Arthur’s from the men’s picture magazine SHE, 1957.

A magazine article published in 1957 by SHE (pictured above) referred to Madame Arthur’s as “The Sodom of the Seine.” This lascivious-sounding description is reflective of the article itself which laments “Les Boys” takeover of the Paris nightclub scene and the disappearance of the beloved “decorative” showgirl. Madame Arthur’s would open its doors in 1946. The club’s name comes from a song originally written back in 1850 by Michael Feingold, which was later translated to French by author Paul de Kock. The song was then popularized by French cabaret performer and actress, Yvette Guilbert. Here are some of the cheeky lyrics from the song:

Madame Arthur is quite the lady
They chatter and chatter about her all over Paris
She may be mature and slightly shady
But each man is her lover-to-be!

Oui, Oui! The club and its sister establishment Le Carrousel were playgrounds of sorts for famous transvestite performers such as Coccinelle who debuted her act at Madame Arthur’s in 1953. According to historians, an artist would be hired first by Madame Arthur’s and the cream of the crop would then be given the opportunity to take the stage at Le Carrousel. Occasionally exceptions were made for international acts that had credibility or notoriety worldly enough to bypass Madame Arthur’s, and allowing them to go straight to Le Carrousel. Incredible images of the Parisian trans trailblazers below. Some of the photos are NSFW.

—Frederick’s of Hollywood founder Frederick Mellinger on what made him successful.

You have to give Frederick’s of Hollywood founder, Frederick Mellinger a lot of credit. After lying about his age, Mellinger scored a gig at a women’s “intimate apparel” company when he was only fourteen. The veritable dream job quickly helped acquaint Mellinger with the ins-and-outs of the mail-order business though he would later be fired from his job for suggesting that the company add *gasp* black undergarments to its catalog. During a stint in the army Mellinger became hip to the existence of the “pinup girl.” His new awareness would end up being a tipping point for the young entrepreneur who headed to New York City to open the first Frederick’s headquarters in 1946 right on Fifth Avenue which he dubbed “Frederick’s of Fifth Avenue.” Within a year’s time, Mellinger moved his base of operations to Hollywood Boulevard.

I’m sure most of you out there are at least somewhat acquainted with what Mellinger would end up calling Frederick’s of Hollywood. Those three words are undeniably synonymous with girlie garments like push-up bras, crotchless panties, and other skin-tight delights, many of which were black. While he was still doing business in New York, Mellinger couldn’t get a magazine or newspaper to run illustrated ads for his racy garment because they considered them to be “pornographic.” Once he relocated his headquarters to Los Angeles and opened the first of what would eventually become 160 retail locations in 1947, everyone from exotic dancers to bored housewives started snapping up his enticing designs. Then, while on a business trip to France that same year, he bore witness to his first bikini-clad woman. Mellinger brought back as many French bikinis as he could which he promptly sold without effort back in Hollywood. Then something happened that would prove to be a linchpin to Frederick’s future success that involved the cops and one of their bikini-loving fans.

A lucky girl who happened to score one Mellinger’s French bikinis was arrested on Venice Beach while wearing it and was charged with “indecent exposure.” The papers went wild and widely published stories accompanied with scandalous images of the poor girl being cuffed and stuffed into a police car. Orders for anything and everything from the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog went through the roof, and it would be almost 40 years until the company would post their first ever loss in 1984. Through it all, it was Mellinger’s determination to continue to push the boundaries of lingerie design that led to, among other things, the invention of the thong panty and edible panties. Well done, Mr. Mellinger, well done.

When I came across the illustrations used during the early days of Frederick’s, I had not seen them before. Most likely since I mostly associated the catalog with the real-life model sleaze of the 80s. The discovery has led me to pursue the acquisition of one of their vintage catalogs that pre-date the mid-70s, which are sadly hard to come by these days. So, for the time being, we will all have to live vicariously through the images below, some of which are NSFW.

The “WIP” (“women in prison”) film genre has several sub-genres ranging from nuns in prison to an interpretation favored mostly by European filmmakers who loved to include Nazis in their chick-centric prison flicks. Italy, Germany, and France put out quite a few WIP films back in the 70s and 80s, as did the U.S. of A. and the Philippines. When the first women in prison films made their way to the big screen they were more dramatically inclined. One of the very first films to tell the tale of a girl behind bars is Hold Your Man starring the profitable on-screen power couple of Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. The film is full of some pretty salacious stuff. Thankfully, this was 1933 and Hollywood films were still getting away with more on screen prior to the enforcement of rules laid out in the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 being widely adopted within the industry as it wasn’t really wasn’t policed until late in 1934. Which made a film like Hold Your Man—whose plotline involved a gorgeous blonde getting stuck behind bars while she’s knocked up with her lover’s baby—possible.

You can find WIP films in every decade but because both the 1970s and 1980s are so near and dear to my heart—and because I’d quite frankly love the opportunity to do another one of these posts—we’re going to stay put in those two consecutive decades. The genre can be pretty strange and runs anywhere from girl-heavy drama which would generally fall into the “redemption” film category to straight-up pornography. In the 1950s WIP films were heavily influenced by pulp fiction novels but it wouldn’t take long for the films to evolve (or devolve perhaps) into exploitation flicks with lots of nudity, sex, violence, rape, and notably deviant plotlines.

The popularity of the genre and its many sub-genres soared during the 70s and 80s which would bring us , Chained Heat starring teen queen Linda Blair and Wendy O. Williams’s prison warden in Reform School Girls. So now that I think I’ve given you more than a few compelling reasons to take a deep dive into this strangely complex film genre, I’ve posted a large selection of WIP movie posters that are mostly NSFW as you would expect them to be.

Some of the mind-melting jams on Brown Acid: The Fourth Trip are so rare that the die-hard fuzz junkies who compiled the Brown Acid series say that you’d have a better chance of hitting the lottery than finding a physical 45 single by the bands featured on their latest installment. If there’s one thing that vinyl nerds love it is unearthing something that nobody else they know has in their collection, and Brown Acid: The Fourth Trip brings more music from unsung bands like Australian heavy metal/psych band Ash; Kanaan out of Dangerfield, Texas; and the proggy sounds of nearly unknown Indiana band, AXAS and their four-minute tribute to “Lucifer.”

Since I enjoy a challenge I had a lot of fun digging up details on a few of the bands that are featured on the latest installment of Brown Acid. Though “Lucifer” is the only AXAS tune that the band has licensed in over 40 years, according to AXAS band member Bill Carbaugh it seems that the group put out more than 65 songs during their six-year run. So guarded are the band of their back catalog that Carbaugh keeps the copyrighted and notarized score for “Lucifer” locked away in his safe. In light of this information, there’s likely a good chance that we have yet to hear the last from AXAS. Then there is Aussie band Ash, whose sick stranglehold of a single “Midnight Witch” popped up on Brown Acid: The Second Trip which we premiered here on DM last year. This time their ripping track “Warrant” will kick your ass all the way from 1971 with its impossibly psychedelic riffs and vocals that make the band sound like a much heavier version of Jethro Tull.

Rounding out the nine singles on Brown Acid: The Fourth Trip is the pre-punk sound of Chicago band Bad Axe. Inspired by The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple and The Who, Bad Axe vocalist and guitarist John Turner recalls that the recording sessions for “Coachmen” were done while the band consumed Jack Daniels and a bunch of weed. However, due to various issues especially a lack of finances (and maybe being too stoned) Bad Axe was never able to actually able to get their recordings pressed until 2014 when Permanent Records uncovered the band’s recordings and put out both “Coachmen” and “Poor Man, Run” on 45 which promptly sold-out.

“An erect penis has no resemblance to the kind that they have seen on statues in parks or on small boys paddling the seashore.”

—Authors of An ABZ of Love, Sten and Inge Hegeler on what it is like seeing a penis for the first time.

Inge and Sten Hegeler were a bit like the Danish version of Masters and Johnson, the transformative American research team that revolutionized human sexuality. Hegeler was a psychologist and author who specialized in sexology. In 1948 Hegeler published the book Hvordan, Mor? ( How, Mother?) which was considered one of the first books of its kind to detail such direct, honest advice on how to provide sexual education to kindergarten-aged children. After getting his own psychology practice up and running he and Inge would go on to publish a few other notable books including one that Kurt Vonnegut kept on his own library shelf, An ABZ of Love.

Vonnegut was so taken with the publication that he wrote a letter to his wife letting her know where she could “find” the book in his library. The book itself, which was self-published by the pair in 1962, was exhaustive when it came to its range of information. And I mean they covered everything including topics that were (and are still by some) considered taboo which made ABZ a rather boundary-smashing publication that voiced a clear, positive opinion about equality and its relation to gender, color or one’s sexual identity. They were also fond of using proper words such as “cock,” “pussy” and “fuck” to describe specific actions or attributes within the book’s nearly 300 pages. No wonder Vonnegut adored it enough to write his wife a love-letter of sorts about it. In fact, here’s a short epigrammatic passage from ABZ that sounds a whole lot like Vonnegut wrote the advice himself.

So there are two paths we can take: one is try to deny and suppress our emotions and force ourselves to think sensibly. In this way we run the risk of fooling ourselves.

Hi ho. At this point, it seems pretty clear to me that everyone should own a copy of An ABZ of Love. It is also quite possible that there are many among us that could use a little refresher course on the ins and outs of what we all think about every single day, sex, as it just doesn’t come in one flavor. You know like vanilla? I’ve included many illustrations by Krag from the vintage book, which has been published in fifteen different countries, along with their often amusing captions below. Many are NSFW.

A trading card from the ‘Grindhouse Girls’ set put out by Rigomor Press in 1992.

This set of sexed-up trading cards featuring strippers and exotic performers from the 50s and 60s was put out in 1992 by Rigomor Press who also put out a few other controversial trading card sets such as Incredible True Life Murderers in 1991 and The World’s Most Hated People in 1992.

The Grindhouse Girls set contains images of well-known adult performers such as Blaze Starr and Maria Villa who performed her exotic act with a snake. The black and white images are a fantastic throw-back to when adult performers used pasties, big hair, and kooky gimmicks to sell their sex appeal. Best of all, like many other vintage trading card sets, when you flipped the cards over you could assemble a giant puzzle—but instead of scene from Charlie’s Angels, you get to put together a picture of “Goddess of the Jungle” Naja Karamuru who was considered to be Brazil’s answer to Jayne Mansfield. Karamuru was a superstar of the burlesque scene back in the 50s and 60s and like Maria Villa, she shared her stage with a number of snakes including two pythons and a cobra. I’ve included images of all twenty cards from the set which occasionally come up for sale on auction sites like eBay if you’re interested in acquiring one for yourself. Though there isn’t any real nudity, strippers and pasties generally equal NSFW.

Marlene Dietrich, as ‘Bijou Blanche’ in a feminine version of a Navy officer’s uniform from the 1940 motion picture ‘Seven Sinners.’

Before you watch this sixteen-plus minute training video put out by the Navy in 1967, you’ll need a little background on this vintage piece of sexist “how to.”

How to Succeed with Brunettes’ is one of nearly 3000 training films produced by the U.S. Navy during the 1960s that range from topics such as “good hygiene” to how women enlisted in the military should “conduct” themselves around their male counterparts. It’s also said that the film was lampooned by the television news program 60 Minutes in its early days and that the show even presented the Navy with a “faux Oscar” for How to Succeed With Brunettes for being the most “unnecessary” and “fiscally wasteful” film on record for the time. For you see, back in 1966 it was tax dollars that covered the $64,000 tab for creating this cringe-worthy film.

The cover of ‘Rock A Bye Baby.’ A horror novel from 1984 by prolific horror writer Stephen Gresham.

A huge tip of my hat goes out to the exhaustive blog Too Much Horror Fiction (is there such a thing? I think not) for inspiring this post. Curated by the self-described “neat, clean, shaved & sober” Will Errickson, the site has been cataloging and reviewing vintage horror novels since 2010. As a bonafide horror junkie, I’ll never understand how I didn’t know about this site until today. If you’re a horror nerd like I am and were perhaps not hip to Errickson’s dedication to the books that helped shape our youth, then welcome to your new Internet time-killer. Zing!

I’m sure a few of the books I’ve featured in this post will be familiar to you—such as the cover of the 1976 book The Fury which was the basis for Brian De Palma’s 1978 film of the same name starring Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes and Amy Irving. I’ve also included a few H.P. Lovecraft paperbacks featuring fantastic cover artwork that will bring you right back to those times you spent spinning those revolving metal book racks around hoping to find a cover repulsive enough to freak your parents out with. If this post gets you pining away for this kind of vintage goodness then you’re in luck as many of these books can still be found on auction sites such as eBay and Etsy. Some of the artwork that follows is slightly NSFW.

The 1976 cover of a reprint of the novel by Jack Finney ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’ Finney original penned the book, which has been adapted into several notable films, in 1955.

The cover of the 1960 book ‘Transvestism Today: The Phenomenon of Men Who Dress Like Women.’

According to a note on the back cover of the 1960 book Transvestism Today: The Phenomenon of Men Who Dress Like Women, viewing the book was only for the eyes of those affiliated with the medical community, psychoanalysts or students currently pursuing degrees in “psychology or social studies.” Written by the rather prolific Dr. Edward Podolsky and noted “hack” Carlson Wade, the duo authored many books together on sexuality and psychology. Including The Modern Sex Manual in 1942 which divulged some rather stunning revelations such as the “abnormal” act of masturbation can “dull” the feeling of intercourse:

Masturbation, if it has been indulged in excessively before marriage maybe be a cause of lack of orgasm during coitus. In women, masturbation brings into play abnormal channels of nerve stimulation, and as these are not stimulated during the normal act, the woman fails to achieve and orgasm. In most cases if masturbation is dropped completely and normal sexual activity substituted for it, the normal channels of nerve stimulation will in time bring about a normal enjoyment of the act.

It seems all that is missing from the good doctor’s assessment is that you might also go blind while pleasuring yourself. Podolsky and Wade’s Transvestism Today book is chock full of photographs of famous drag queens such as the alluring Parisian “Coccinelle” (born Jacques Charles Dufresnoy). Coccinelle was notable for many reasons including being the roommate of Salvador Dali muse Amanda Lear and the first French-born man to undergo sexual reassignment surgery which was performed in Casablanca in 1958.

When it comes to Wade’s contributions to the literary world, in addition to to his many collaborations with Dr. Podolsky (including six manuals from 1963 referred to as their “Epic Sexual Behavior Series”) he is also responsible for a series of sleazy pulp paperbacks such as a book on Coccinelle published in 1963 titled She-Male: The Sex-Reversal True Life Story of COCCINELLE. There was also a claim made by Bob Blackburn, the executor of Ed Wood’s estate (on behalf of his second wife Kathy O’Hara) that Wood was actually Carlson Wade and had written the 1958 book by Wade Conquering Goddess. And just because I love to throw our DM readers a good old-fashioned curveball, Wade also penned loads of trash under the name of “Ken Worthy” among other pseudonyms. But as I often do, I digress. Why don’t we take a look at the table of contents from Worthy/Wade/not-Wood 1967 book The Queer Path, shall we?:

The Table of Contents from Wade Carlson’s book ‘The Queer Path,’ 1967.

Moving on, here’s more anti-gay rantings from Worthy/Wade as published in 1965’s The New Homosexual Revolution lest you have any doubt of the author’s feelings about the gay community of the 1960s:

As the ranks of the homosexual is constantly swelling by greater and greater acceptance of this condition as an ‘illness,’ the ranks of the male prostitute is also swelled.

I’ve included images of both pages from both authors’ books as well as other salacious imagery that I’m sure will make you wonder if Dr. Podolsky perhaps got his degree out of a box of Cracker Jacks.

A page from ‘Transvestism Today: The Phenomenon of Men Who Dress Like Women.’

An illustration accompanying Carlson Wade’s article on the ‘strange erotic impulse’ of ‘Vampirism.’